Care Opinion

Text size

Theme

Language

Videos in BSL or ISL
Help with language translation
Help with reading or listening

Children's A & E

Story from nhs.uk

"Children's A & E"

About: University Hospital (Coventry) / Accident and emergency

I came to your A&E department yesterday as my son was unable to stand on his right leg as he was in pain. As he had had no incidents when he was with myself I was obviously concerned.

When we arrived there were two other patients already there waiting. On this basis I was fairly hopeful of a quick turnaround. How wrong was I?

We were called in to see the nurse, who was rude & patronising for a start. They really should work on their bedside manner as this nurse has a distant lack of it!

The two patients before us (both babies) were called in Eventually & we were left in the waiting room by ourselves. At this point we had already had a two hour wait, which seemed excessive based on the number of patients in the waiting room.

The next minute several other patients arrived at A&E. the waiting room was suddenly very busy.

4 patients were then taken straight through, which immediately put us at the bottom of the waiting list.

At this point I made the decision to leave. The waiting time was already excessive due to the staff taking their time, yet when they had a surge of patients they suddenly had the staff to look after those who were urgent!?!

I have had to come to A&E several times with my son & have always been patient with the waiting times, but yesterday was ridiculous & unacceptable.

It seems your A&E staff have no intention of reducing waiting times, something that would be quite easy to do if they didn't just leave people waiting for no reason when they are fairly quiet.

I hope I don't have to come back to your A &E department.

More about:
nhs.uk logo
Do you have a similar story to tell? Tell your story & make a difference ››

Responses

Response from University Hospital (Coventry) 7 years ago
University Hospital (Coventry)

Submitted on 03/01/2018 at 16:42
Published on nhs.uk at 17:32

Thank you for sharing your feedback on NHS Choices I was sorry to hear about your experience in our hospital. I have shared your comments with the Modern Matron for Children’s Services. She has looked into your review with the Unit Manager and they would like to apologise for the poor manner you experienced from the member of staff in triage. This does not reflect our Trust values and all members of staff have been reminded regarding professional communication and first impressions.

With regards to the waiting time, it is our practice that babies are brought back for a Senior Doctor review and this may been why they were called through first.

The Manchester Triage system is used in Children's ED which categorises patients on a clinical need. Children and babies are therefore seen in order of clinical need and not in relation to the time they booked in, there is printed information displayed in the waiting area to explain this. All staff in Children’s ED have been reminded regarding the importance of regularly updating parents/carers in the waiting area of waiting times and any potential delays. We hope this gives reassurance that we have investigated and acted upon the concerns raised.

If you would like to discuss your care further you can contact the Trust’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 0800 028 4203. If you would prefer to contact us by e-mail, our address is feedback@uhcw.nhs.uk.

If you do decide to contact us, please make us aware that you have left comments on the NHS Choices website.

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback, we appreciate all comments both positive and negative, as it helps us to better understand our patients’ needs and to continually improve.

Communications Team

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

Telephone: 0800 028 4203

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful
Opinions
Next Response j
Previous Response k